1. Technical Field
The invention relates generally to a towel warmer. More particularly, the invention relates to a heating unit for warming towels and the ambient air adjacent the unit. Specifically, the invention relates to a heating unit housed within a piece of furniture or a wall for warming towels as well as the ambient air.
2. Background Information
Towel warmers are useful to insure that a towel is dry and fresh. People also generally prefer a warm towel because the ambient air outside the shower or bathtub is cooler than the warm water and air within the shower. Further, the towel warmer can be used to dry a wet towel as well as keeping the towel warm before use.
Towel warmers traditionally come in two different styles. The first style is a sealed container with either a front opening door or a top opening door. The top opening version is convenient because the warmer can use any large enough floor space and the user simply opens the top to retrieve a heated towel. At the same time, the top opening version is inconvenient because valuable floor space is lost and the warmer is not aesthetically pleasing. The front opening version is generally smaller than the top opening version and is not free standing which means that the towel warmer must be placed on a stand or counter. Since the warmer is on a stand or counter, valuable space is once again lost.
The second and more popular style is the bar or straight towel warming rack. The straight towel warmer includes numerous bars arranged parallel to each other and generally inline. The warmer is either plugged into a wall outlet or hard-wired so that each bar is heated. This means that the entire warmer is heated even though only a portion of the warmer is being used. The warmer is highly inefficient because only those portions of the towel that contact one of the bars will be heated, and any additional heat is wasted. Further, since the straight towel rack has a number of bars, the towel rack tends to be much larger. Finally, the towel warmer rack may be a free standing version or a wall mounted version. Once again each version has its particular issues. The freestanding version takes up valuable floor space, while the wall mounted version is not aesthetically pleasing and will leave holes if the warmer is removed.
Thus, there is a long felt need in the art for an aesthetically pleasing and efficient towel warmer which does not take up valuable floor space while also heating the ambient air.